I dream of a place...

 Where everyone gets to sit on a throne...

 Where kids get to try on silly hats and goofy glasses...

 Where there are enough monkey pens for everyone...

And where everyone lives in tiny metal houses...

And that place is Lynn's Paradise Cafe (except for the part about the metal houses.)

The only thing better than Christmas is a post-Christmas get-together with friends.  Gaye and I had another lunch at Lynn's funky, funny restaurant, where our table this time was a vintage game table with a glass top, with a train track and scenery below our plates of food.  Said scenery included green plastic forks as trees.  A little shopping, a little gift-exchanging, and a lot of friend-time to end out the year.  The journal pages above are the end of that calendar-style journal.  Seems like Jan. 1, 2011 was just here a few weeks ago.

Gaye's metal work skills continue to amaze me.  The little house book fits in my hand.  Such detail!

Merry Christmas

It's Christmas.   Be Nice.

(No, I don't know these girls.  It's from http://www.awkwardfamilyphotos.com/)

It's not All about Christmas

If you are one of those people with a birthday sometime around Christmas, well, I hope you get some you-time in there somewhere during the holiday rush.

And especially if you are my favorite sister...

Happy Birthday!!

Sugar Coma

I blame the person who first gave me the recipe.  (Yes, CN, that would be you!)  It is sometimes called White Trash.  When people ask me for the recipe, I call it Holiday Mix, cause it sounds, um, classier.  Either way, it's addictive.  Most years, I make a bunch for gift-giving.  I usually end up with too much. What a shame... (heh heh heh)

In case you want to make some, here's the general recipe:
2 cups thin pretzel sticks
3 cups Corn Chex cereal
3 cups Rice Chex cereal
3 cups Cheerios cereal
12 ounce bag of M & M's *
Peanuts as desired (*or skip the plain M&M's and the peanuts and get peanut M&M's)
1.5 pound white chocolate (I use Kroger White Bark)

Mix all dry ingredients.  Melt white chocolate in microwave as directed on package.   Pour melted chocolate over dry mix and mix it all well.  Spread on wax paper to cool.  Store in sealed containers. 
So easy, even I can do it!  I usually use the whole package of white bark, then add a little more of each of the dry ingredients. 

Angels on High

He sees you when you're sleeping

He knows when you're awake.
He knows when you've been bad or good,
so be good for goodness sakes!

If you can't be silly at Christmas, then when can you be silly? 
(I know, I know... it's a year round activity for me, but that's beside the point.)

That Geo Paper

I'm thinking that geo paper I made a few weeks ago looks really spiffy as gift wrap paper.

P.S. - Dear Santa, please please bring me some big sheets of Arches Text Wove for Christmas!  I need to make some bigger sheets of this paper.
P.P.S. - I've been good this year (take my word for it, no need to ask around...)

Digital Christmas

I love Christmas and I try not to lose sight of what it's all about.  Still... I saw this YouTube video last year and really got a chuckle out of it.  It is worth re-visiting again.

Click here - Christmas 2.0

Bookie Lookie

I have been smitten for a while with little vintage slider boxes that contain labels and other office supplies.  The best ones are the ones that look like little books.  I check eBay sometimes to see what's out there.  Bidding can go really high, really fast on the good stuff.  Some people even sell the boxes empty, but I like them with contents.

I decided to cover some matchboxes and see how that would look mixed in with my vintage boxes.  I gathered some papers for covers, but by the time I got ready to make covers, I didn't use any of those papers and used my good old stash of security envelopes instead.  I put a white sticker on what would be the foredge of the fake book.  One of my vintage boxes even has fake pages and dividers.

It turned out pretty good, but not the same as the vintage ones.  Plus the matchbox is smaller.  But at least I got it out of my system!

 

Quick Fix

I have some loose ends I need to tie up so I can move on.  When I posted about making Geo Paper (from Jill Berry's instructions), I had one more sheet of paper left with the black sumi ink lines drawn on it.  I decided to stamp some of the sections with a number/letter collage stamp.  Then I decided to paint the sections with the Peerless watercolors I got last summer.

The Peerless colors are very nice and bright (I guess they have to be pretty concentrated to come in the form of a paper sheet.)  However, once I used one color, that page was wet.  Turning the pages back and forth to use other colors presented a problem. 

 In my head, I would have come up with some kind of clever palette design, but since I was impatient, this will do for now.  I cut squares from each color and put it on cardstock using double stick tape.  Then I clamped  the cardstock to cardboard for sturdiness. 

I'm sure there will be a very clever, more interesting solution coming in the future.

It's a good day when...

You know it's going to be a good day when it involves a selection of pretty waxed linen sewing thread.

You know it's going to be a good day when your friend from Alaska comes for her yearly visit. [photo not availble]

You know it's going to be a good day when your friend lets you use her Vagabond machine.

[This is one of my favorite pictures of Gaye, taken at Stampaway in Cincinnati last August when she had just purchased the Vagabond machine.]

It's definitely a good day when you all get to play and make books, then have a fabulous lunch and play some more.  And then have peanut butter ice cream.  Too bad I did not take more pictures of some of these things, but I was too busy having fun!

Gaye has been busy designing new books, and the three of us used different embossing folders to make our cover designs. 

I copied Gaye, and put some green stamp pad ink on one of the clock parts to make it show up better.  When I got home, I decided to add more ink to the rest of the front and to the back.  Just a light amount to bring out the design. 

We had lots of fun... it was just one of those fun play days that we all need more of!